Extra Reading Diary: Celtic Fairy Tales

For the extra reading diary for this week, I wanted to do the reading for Celtic Fairy Tales.

The story that made me want to do it is the Celtic version of Snow White, called Gold-Tree and Silver-Tree. In it, a king has a beautiful wife and daughter, Silver-Tree and Gold-Tree, respectively. One day, the queen asks a trout if she is the fairest in the land, to which he replies that she is not, but her daughter is. From this moment on the queen vowed to eat her daughter's heart and liver, which seems a bit extreme all things considered.

Silver-Tree and Gold-Tree

Credit: DeviantArt - Degare

Now one day, the queen is sick and tells the king that she will be well if he brings her the heart and liver of Gold-Tree. Gold-Tree was arranged to marry a very rich prince from another kingdom, so of course the king couldn't let that happen! He went and had his lads (as the story put it) find a male goat and gave its heart and liver to the queen. She rose from bed and was fine again. One day she was walking by the brook, and asked the trout again if she was the fairest in the land. The trout again said no, Gold-Tree is. This is when the queen learns her daughter is alive and well. So she asks the king to arrange for a ship to take her to visit Gold-Tree.

When Gold-Tree sees that her mother's ship is coming, she tells the prince that surely she will die at her mother's hand. So the prince hides her in a room and locks it. Silver-Tree asks that her daughter come see her, but Gold-Tree says no. So Silver-Tree asks her to put her finger through the door so she could kiss it, but instead puts a poison spike in it and kills her.

This is where it gets kind of weird. Rather than bury her, the prince keeps her body locked in a room and keeps the key with him. Eventually he remarries and his new wife accidentally finds it. She removes the spike from Gold-Tree's hand, and she comes back to life. The new wife offers to leave, but the prince says he's happy with both of them. Silver-Tree finds out, and again sails to the land to try to kill her daughter. When she gets there -- she brought a poisoned drink this time -- the second wife says they'll go meet her.

Once the queen offers Gold-Tree some of her drink, the second wife says its custom for the person bringing wine to drink it first. When the queen goes to drink it, the second wife hits her hand so she drinks all of it, and she dies. The three lived a happy life after that together. The story ends "I left them there," which is the Celtic way of saying they lived happily ever after.

Storytelling Week 12: The Tart Thief

After Alice had dined with the Hatter and the Hare, she eventually wound up in the King and Queen's Court. Everyone was there, and the Knave was standing between two guards in chains. Alice noticed a plate of tarts on a table near the King and Queen, and hoped they would soon be passing them out as they looked so good.

She began to notice all the different aspects of the court: the judge (who was the King) and the jury made up of all sorts of animals and people.

It was quite the scene.

Source: Disney's Alice in Wonderland, 1951

Alice waited patiently for the trial to start. Finally, the King ordered for the crime to be read aloud. The White Hare, who was the herald of the court, announced that the Knave of Hearts had stolen the Queen's tarts, and his punishment was to be banished from Wonderland for all of eternity.

"What is your verdict?" the King asked.

"Why the rush, Your Highness?" the Hare asked. "We have so much to do beforehand! Will Mr. Hatter please approach the bench?"

As the Mad Hatter approached the bench, Alice began to fidget. This was all too intense, and to think the Knave's fate in Wonderland depended on just three people! The Hatter didn't seem too concerned as he walked up with tea in hand.

After a long line of questions, Alice began to wonder if they really planned to kick the Knave out of Wonderland. She soon forgot her worries as the next witness was called: the Duchess's cook. The cook declined to answer any questions, but the King said she has no other option or she will be executed. Eventually, the King was done questioning the cook -- he had asked her mainly what was used to make tarts -- and he asked for the final witness. Alice watched intently as the Dormouse was awoken and sent to the stand for questioning.

"Have you seen who stole the tarts?" the King asked the mouse. "Or have you any idea who might have stolen them?"

The Dormouse, who was barely awake as he was sleeping most of his days away, looked up lazily and said one word -- Alice. At hearing her name, Alice looked up in fear as the Queen's gaze stopped directly on her. "Grab that girl and expel her this instance!" the Queen yelled angrily. "Never again shall you set foot in Wonderland!"

Alice kicked and clawed as the King's guards grabbed her and pushed towards an odd looking doorway. "This is a travesty!" she screamed. "I've never stolen anything in my life!"

But it was too late. Because of one testimony, Alice had been banned from Wonderland for life. The guards pushed her through the door and suddenly she was back in her bed, in her world. She began to cry as she realized never again would she be a part of the wonder and magic of that strange world again.

Author's Note: I used Who Stole the Tarts as the basis for my story. It's pretty similar in structure and events -- I left out a lot that happened for the sake of brevity -- but I changed it to a rather abrupt ending in which Alice is kicked out without a chance to speak her peace. A sad ending, sure, but fairy tales aren't always happy!

Bibliography:
From the Alice in Wonderland unit: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll, 1865.

Reading Diary B: Alice in Wonderland

So continuing with Alice in Wonderland, I'm going to do the same thing and focus on one story since the second half is just a few stories as well. I'll be focusing on the Mad Tea Party.

This story begins with the March Hare and Mad-Hatter having tea and using a Dormouse as a cushion for their elbows. Alice thinks it looks uncomfortable, but since it's asleep, she supposes the mouse doesn't mind. The three are all in one corner of a very large table, and Alice sits down without being invited.

The Hare offers her some wine, but there isn't any. Alice says that wasn't very nice to offer it without being there, and the Hare says it wasn't very nice to sit without being invited to do so. The Hatter's first remark is about how Alice needs a haircut, and she gets offended. The rest of the first part of this story is nothing but riddles and snide remarks between the three, so I won't go into too much detail.

Alice had been asked one of the riddles, and couldn't figure out what the answer was, so she asked the pair what it was. They had no idea. She suggests doing something better with time than wasting it asking riddles with no answers. They say time isn't an IT, but a HE. These little word games continue on for quite a while in the story until they tell the Dormouse to tell a story. He begins, and in the middle tells Alice to have take some more tea. She said she hasn't taken any yet, so she can't take more. The Hatter says she can't take LESS, because it's always possible to take more than nothing.

The rest of the story is really just the Dormouse telling the story, Alice not understanding what's going on, and then finally her leaving because she can't take it any more. It's best to just read the story to get an understanding of it, it's way too complex given how much space I have to write this!

Alice, the Mad Hatter and the March Hare

Source: Disney's Alice in Wonderland, 1951

Reading Diary A: Alice in Wonderland

So for Week 12, I'm going to be doing Alice in Wonderland. The first reason I'm doing this unit is because I'd like to see how I can change one of the stories up for the storytelling portion of this week. The second reason is I've been playing Borderlands and one of the DLC packs is a sort of twist on Alice in Wonderland. So there's that. Since the stories are each three sections, I'm just going to focus on the first one, Down the Rabbit Hole.

In the first story of the unit, Alice comes off as a restless little girl. As her sister reads a book peacefully, Alice is off wondering about arbitrary stuff, and gets distracted by a rabbit. It's wearing a jacket and talks to itself, but Alice doesn't notice anything odd until it pulls out a pocket watch, as if the first two qualities weren't odd enough for her to pay attention to.

She follows the rabbit down a hole and falls for what seems like forever. She even wonders if she'll end up in New Zealand or Australia, which again, doesn't make much sense. After about 4 paragraphs of falling, she ends up in a hallway with locked doors. She finds a key that won't open any of them, but realizes it opens one tiny tiny door. She won't fit, so she drinks a mysterious substance (which she checks first for a descriptive "poison" label), which of course, makes her very small.

She walks to the door, but forgets the key on the table, which is much taller than she is now, and can't manage to get on top of the table again. So she starts crying, as little girls are wont to do. After crying for a bit, she pulls herself together and notices a cake with the words "EAT ME" on it. She starts growing and growing, until her head hits the ceiling. She grabs the key and opens the door, but she's too big to fit through now, so again, she starts crying. And that's where this section of the story ends!

Alice falling down the rabbit hole.

Source: Disney's Alice in Wonderland, 1951